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Examples of vague in a Sentence

When my three years of military service ended, I looked around for some way to get to spend time in rural Vietnam as a civilian. The driving force was still primarily intellectual curiosity, along with a desire to improve my language ability in a non-Western language and some vague idea of doing folkloristic or literary studies in the future. —Neil L. Jamieson, Understanding Vietnam, (1993) 1995

There are vague memories in our souls of those misty centuries when the world was in its childhood. —Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet, 1887

At the end of half an hour Tom had a vague general idea of his lesson, but no more, for his mind was traversing the whole field of human thought, and his hands were busy with distracting recreations. —Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer, 1876

It thrilled him with a vague uncertain horror, to know that behind the dusky shroud, there were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon him, while he, though he stretched his own to the utmost, could see nothing but a spectral hand and one great heap of black. —Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, 1843

The instructions she left were vague and difficult to follow.

He gave only a vague answer.

The judges determined that the law was too vague to be fairly enforced.

She has been vague about her plans for college.

We had only a vague idea of where we were.

I think I have a vague understanding of how it works.

He longed in some vague way for something different.

She felt a vague sense of uneasiness when she was around him.

I had the vague impression that they were withholding information.

We could just barely make out the vague outline of a plane in the sky.

But authorities warned that even a vague radio distress call can be enough to launch an expensive search by boat or helicopter requiring emergency crews to scan hundreds of miles of blue waters for a threat that doesn't exist.

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'vague.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Origin and Etymology of vague

borrowed from French, going back to Middle French, going back to Old French, “wandering, vagabond,” borrowed from Latin vagus “moving freely, wandering,” perhaps akin to Old High German wankōn “to totter, stagger,” winkan “to waver, stagger, wink,” Old English wincian “to close the eyes” — more at 1wink

Synonym Discussion of vague

obscure, dark, vague, enigmatic, cryptic, ambiguous, equivocal mean not clearly understandable. obscure implies a hiding or veiling of meaning through some inadequacy of expression or withholding of full knowledge. obscure poemsdark implies an imperfect or clouded revelation often with ominous or sinister suggestion. muttered dark hints of revengevague implies a lack of clear formulation due to inadequate conception or consideration. a vague sense of obligationenigmatic stresses a puzzling, mystifying quality. enigmatic occult writingscryptic implies a purposely concealed meaning. cryptic hints of hidden treasureambiguous applies to language capable of more than one interpretation. an ambiguous directiveequivocal applies to language left open to differing interpretations with the intention of deceiving or evading. moral precepts with equivocal phrasing

vaguely

vagueness

Law Dictionary

vague

Legal Definition of vague

: characterized by such a lack of precision that a person of ordinary intelligence would have to guess if particular conduct is being proscribed : characterized by a failure to describe forbidden conduct in terms sufficient to provide fair warning an unconstitutionally vague law — see also void-for-vagueness doctrine — compare overbroad